How To Get Old Bank Statement For Case Purposes

KEY TAKEAWAYS

1. Bank records can be used to keep track of your bank activity, reconciliations and how the bank account is performing.

2. Records such as Bank statements work as evidence in court in some cases, where the monetary interest of party lies.

3. A bank statement is a list of all transactions for a bank account over a set period, usually monthly. The statement includes deposits, charges, withdrawals, as well as the beginning and ending balance for the period.

4. As banking system is going electronic, Section 34 of the Indian Evidence Act 1872 explains that books of records, including Bank records, which are kept up in the day-by-day course.

RELEVANCY OF BANK RECORDS

"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence"

Bank Records and mainly bank statement is extraordinary evidence and availability or non-availability can tilt a case easily. Bank records often work as primary as primary evidence in cases such as dissolution and divorce.

Section 34 of the Indian Evidence Act 1872 explains that books of records, including Bank records, which are kept up in the day-by-day course of business in electronic structure or any case are significant (CENTRAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION V/SV.C. SHUKLA and ORS.) to be permissible in a courtroom. For setting up the obligation of an individual, anyway, additional confirmation and Evidence relating the equivalent may be submitted (ISHWAR DASS JAIN (DEAD) THR. LRS. V/S SOHAN LAL (DEAD).

PRIMARY AND SECONDARY FORM OF EVIDENCE

Primary and Secondary both type of Evidence is acceptable under the law. Sections 61,62,63,64 65 and 65B of the Indian Evidence Act 1872 discusses the idea relating to Primary and Secondary type of Evidence. It is a very much settled rule of law that Primary Evidence is given need over the Secondary Evidence, however in the new time of Digital India, it's anything but an overall practice to store information in composed structure constantly.

The vast majority of the information these days are put away electronically on enormous Servers (M/S ICICI BANK LIMITED V/S KAPIL DEV SHARMA), Clouds, and so on with the assistance of PC programs, making it effectively available and secure. Presently when these reports are to be submitted in a court as Evidence, it turns out to be difficult to draw out these Hard-Drives, Servers or information put away on Cloud relating to the concerned party, which is put away alongside the information of numerous others.

Consequently, courts have perceived this need to adjust with innovation and permitted Secondary Evidence to be submitted in situations where Primary Evidence which is in electronic structure is difficult to be created (M/S ASHOKA CHEMICALS (INDIA) V/S M/S BHARTIYA HINDU SHUDHI SABHA TRUST (REGD)).

BANKER'S BOOK EVIDENCE ACT 1891

This Act will, in general, represent the arrangements, which accommodate the conditions which are to be followed while submitting bank records as Evidence in an official courtroom. Section 4 of Banker's Book Evidence Act 1891, manages the method of demonstrating such bank records. Bank records ought to be joined by a testament as per area 2(8) and 2A of the Act. The testament is to guarantee the precision and unwavering quality of the section in financial records. The printout of section or duplicate of such printout alongside the endorsement by the branch administrator/head bookkeeper and the individual responsible for the PC asset which produced that passage together makes an "affirmed duplicate". An ensured duplicate of any section of investor's book will be acceptable at first sight as Evidence.

Section 65B is "parimateriaui" (OM PRAKASH versus CENTRAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION (CBI)) to area 2A of the Banker's Book Evidence Act, which implies they are to be understood together. Area 65B of the Act sets down conditions to be followed while conceding Secondary Evidence in electronic structure. "Generaliaspecialibus non derogant", a unique law will consistently beat the overall law (Anvar P.V Versus P.K. Basheer and others).

Thus, it tends to be understood that even though there is an arrangement under the Evidence Act managing the acceptability of electronic records (65B), area 2A of Banker's Book Evidence Act 1891 explicitly manages the tolerability of banking sections in electronic structure. So as per the rule of GeneraliaSpecialibusSection 2A of the Act is to allude while managing the acceptability of banking records in an electronic structure and not area 65B.

ADMISSIBILITY OF BANK RECORDS

On April 24th, 2009 RBI distributed a warning prompting State and Central Co-usable Banks to consent to the arrangements of Banker's Books Evidence Act, 1891 while outfitting ensured duplicates and PC printouts to courts. The warning further says that if such legal affirmation isn't followed, the courts won't be obliged to concede the report in Evidence with no additional verification.

At the point when we look from the perspective of Judiciary identifying with the idea of accreditation under the Bankers' Books Evidence Act, 1891, the choice of various courts encourages us to comprehend the idea better. Bombay High Court in one of its judgment ( Radheshyam G. Garg versus Safiyabai Ibrahim Lightwalla) held that when a testament is endorsed by a specialist of the bank, approving the records to be a genuine duplicate of the first passage in records, which were kept up in the common course of business and were kept in the care of the bank, at that point in such cases the court ought not to embrace a hyper-specialized view and ought not to zero in on all the conditions given to affirmation under area 2(8) of the Act because the nitty-gritty fixings referenced in the definition statement are just of the index in nature and not compulsory.

ORDER XI UNDER CIVIL PROCEDURE CODE

One can also apply with an application for discovery of documents and production of the same if it is not existing. It has been mentioned under Rules 12 and 14 of Order XI of Civil Procedure Code that:

Rule 12 Order XI of Code of Civil Procedure 1908 "Application for the discovery of documents

Any party may, without filing any affidavit, apply to the Court for an order directing any other party to any suit to discover oath of the documents which are or have been in his possession or power, relating to any matter in question therein. On the hearing of such application the Court may either refuse or adjourn the same, if satisfied that such discovery is not necessary, or not necessary at that stage of the suit, or make such order, either generally or limited to certain classes of documents, as may, in its discretion be thought fit:

Provided that discovery shall not be ordered when and so far as the Court shall be of opinion that it is not necessary either for disposing fairly of the suit or for said costs.

Rule 14 Order XI of Code of Civil Procedure 1908 "Production of documents"

It shall be lawful for the Court, at any time during the pendency of any suit, to order the production by any party thereto, upon oath of such of the documents in his possession or power, relating to any matter in question in such suit, as the Court shall think right; and the Court may deal with such documents, when produced, in such manner as shall appear just.

CONCLUSION

Banking records are a substantial and dependable wellspring of Evidence. Be that as it may, for guaranteeing their precision, accreditation technique under the arrangements of Banker's Books Evidence Act, 1891 is to be conformed to. While affirmation measure, this ought to be remembered that the fixings under section 2(8) of the Act are the only catalogue and not obligatory, subsequently an unbending and exceptionally specialized mentality won't be very useful while conforming to the arrangement. 

On the off chance that a complaint concerning the method of confirmation must be made, it ought to be at the very stage when such archive is offered in Evidence before it is set apart as a display, and not after that (M/S ICICI BANK LIMITED V/S KAPIL DEV SHARMA). If a record submitted is unacceptable, it will stay forbidden if a protest was raised, or whether it was set apart as a display.